Love the "Steam" community and vast Indie games, that's why I'm building a rig. Currently playing DayZ.

hahaha. Well then join me on the Battlefield! Or in Forza!

I can't fault you for wanting to rejoin the PC gaming world though-- I've been moving back and forth between the two for years. Steam is a really hard platform to beat. This generation of console is promising, in that they finally have the same CPU architecture as a traditional PC, so we'll be seeing a lot more crossover, especially from indie devs!

It's been a little while since I've done a whole lot to my system.. I've got..

Intel i5 2500K OCe'd to 4 GHz (air)

8 GBs DDR3

EVGA GTX 760 SC

ASRock Extreme4 Gen3 Z68

Cooler Master Storm Scout Gen1

Dell Ultrasharp U2413m 24" 1920x1200

Does everything I need it to do - no modern beast by any means, but performs well in all games.

So the GTX 760 have been out for a while now huh? Do they have different versions? I know they have different vendor names.

I bought my GTX 760 last June, as soon as they were released. It's been a great card and is still seen as one of the best values at around $250. If I were to buy a card NOW in that same budget range, I'd spring for a R9 280X or a GTX 770. Going forward, having 3+﻿GB of video ram will be worth having. As far as CPUs go, I'm a pretty big fan of the i5 chips. Get a K series so you can overlock. Boards are pretty much preference.. I've had good luck with my ASRock, 3 years without a single hiccup. Asus, Gigabyte, etc. are all popular as well. Get at least 8GB of RAM and no more than 16GB. Pick a case, grab a good PSU (Corsair, XFX, and SeaSonic are my favorites). Throw a decent sized SSD in there for your boot/main programs (120GB+﻿) and a data drive and you're good to go.

Right now would be a good time to get into as well as... Steam Summer Sale!

Unless you're a hardcore gamer that does nothing but (Being as we're all IT Pros, I doubt that's the case!) I typically say stick with the mid-tier products. The price/performance ratio decreases after you leave the mid-tier and I think rather than spending thousands at once it's better to spread that out over many years. You'll always have a competent system without breaking the bank.

I would say the R9 290 or R9 280X for more budget friendly, or a 780ti if you're willing to spend $670. The cards higher than the 780ti, while offering a performance gain, cost more per dollar than the performance gain is worth. The cards lower cost more than they should for how much performance you lose.

The best value, in my opinion is the R9 280X, at $280

The R9 290 DOES offer substantial performance increases, but ﻿at $400, it is quite a bit more.

The R9 290X Offers a performance increase, but at $670, most gamers won't want it, only the rich high end people.

If I could find an R9 290 under $350, I think that would be a great value. If I could find an R9 290X Under $500, that would also be a good value.

As it stands, I would probably get the 280X or the 290 depending on my funds situation.

Can't say I would agree with this. Lately Nvidia has had some real big issues with their drivers that have completely crippled their cards, and worst is they don't seem to be doing anything about it... in fact the common solution seems to be "roll back to an older driver."

Also note, this is my FIRST Intel/Nvidia build. Previous builds for family and myself many years ago have always been AMD/ATI which none of them ever given me issues but their power consumption I feel are much higher at least what I've read in benchmarks.

Okay, here's my setup after reading your current setups. I feel like my graphics card might be okay for future proof, at least in the next 2-3 years.

Case: Corsair C70

Mem: Kingstion 8GB of Ram

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590

MB: Gigabyte Z97X-SLi for future CPU proofing

Cooling: Corsair H100i

Graphics: Nvidia branded GTX 760 (Can't remember if there is additional lettering like "OC" on the card)

SSD: Samsung 256GB SSD EVO 840

HDD: 1TB for storage

PSU: Thermaltake 600W (old) but works okay for now.

The only worry I have is the graphics. I do some video editing on the side so need to make sure it'll keep up and some youtube. =)

You look pretty good from my end, man. I don't think I'd bother messing with any of that for now. You should be good for quite awhile unless you want to turn on every bell and whistle in upcoming games. You could throw another 760 if you really wanted to. Your CPU is fine, your RAM, everything else is fine.